Say we give a young Aussie lad a 2 year working visa, he flies from Sydney to London with a Malaysian airline, the works here for 2 years before heading home. Who’s carbon is it? Australia’s, Malaysia’s or the UK’s?

What about if I import 5 tonnes of Granny Smith apples from the RSA, but use a Japanese shipping company? Is it RSA, Japanese or UK carbon?

I ask because young Miliband was suggesting in a speech last summer that the carbon footprint caused by importing goods to the UK should be our responsibility. How is this going to affect economic development in poorer nations? Would we be shooting ourselves in the foot by restricting imports from further afield?

How far do we actually want to go with measuring carbon ‘footprints’ and trading ‘pollution rights’? Is it conceivable that we will have to ’stop’ one day because we’ve ‘run out’ of carbon? Whilst a load of bureaucrats and politcans try to save us from a crisis of their own creation?

‘He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no-one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast of the number of his name’ (Revelation 13,16-17)

At risk of sounding like a religious nutcase a carbon atom has 6 electrons, 6 protons and 6 neutrons, its number could be expressed as 666. I’m not religious, but I think personal carbon trading is asking for it.